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the New Covenant to be interspersed with Jewish phraseology , and to contain maniy Jewish allusions ? This fact will be yet less astonishing when we consider that the first teachers of the Christian Revelation were Jews , to whom their own Scriptures were , of course , perfectly familiar , whose minds were stored with Jewish images , whose language received a strong tincture from their habits of education and
society , and from their cast of thought , and who , notwithstanding they embraced a new , a more spiritual and liberal dispensation of religion , found it difficult , or rather impossible , ( as in similar circumstances it always is , ) to discard accustomed and current
phraseology . After all , the frequent occurrence of this phraseology might well perplex 11 s , did we not see that it is capable of being explained according to known and approved laws of interpretation . The meaning of Jewish terms , together
with the propriety of Jewish images , has been diligently explored and clearly pointed out . A comparison of difficult passages with those which are less obscure , has contributed to fix the
import of expressions that formerly were almost unintelligible : attention to the style of the prophetic writings in particular , and to the characteristic genius and tenor of Hebrew Poetry , has enabled us to take a more distinct
perception of the moral and religious ideas represented by certain words originally appropriated to objects of sense ; and , while much remains to be done , much has already been effected in this department of sacred criticism . *
From the peculiarity which I have described in the diction of the New Testament there arises a pjnesumptive argument for the genuineness and authenticity of the books so denominated , and , by consequence , for the truth of the Christian Revelation : Those
writes were evtcfentty the productions of native or proselyte Jews : for . besides many less memorable ^ ud totertfefiing marks of a Jewish education , the form _ . . , ¦ | y i i „ , ' , , ¦ ' . ' ' ¦ » r
* It sometimes adults , as , we h ^ -ve found , of mustratuftta ftom wprks of a veiy different ttlwplp : lWereiu ^ S hav e been made sLboveT to two of th 6 Latin lassies : and to those passages 'ftiay be ad < ted , Virg . Etl . \ v . 34 , JEn . vi . 88 . .
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und idioms observable in the composition will not suffer us to imagine that the authors ! belonged to a different class of men . We may ated safely conclude that the writers were Jews in the actual situation of the evangelists and apostles . It isy therefore , v highly improbable , not to say utterly impossible , that this volume should have been the
forgery of a later agei In the phraseology of the Christian Scr iptures we trace the alliance subsisting between the dispensation of Moses and that of Him , < € of whom
Moses , in the law , and the prophets did write /* At the same time , we learn the usefulness , and even the necessity , of itfr acquaintance with the books of the Old to the man who is
desirous of profitably reading those of the New Testament , By some persons the alliance of which I am speaking is overlooked : and it has been excessively magnified b y others . To deny its reality , its closeness and importance , seems hardly consistent with an enlightened faith in the divine mission of Jesus Christ . Hence the records of the
Jewish Revelation claim our diligent study : and whatever illustrates them must eventually promote Christian knowledge . Far , indeed , am I from being an advocate for that typical and allegorical
interpretation of Scripture in which many persons indulge , to the exultation of profane , and the ffrief of wise and serious men . The language of the Sacred Books , remote as it may be from that of the Greek and Roman
classics , of western climates and of modern ages , is uniformly to be explained on the principles of fair and sober criticism . It is a remarkable hypothesis of Semler ' s , that even in the earliest period of the Church the gospel was
taught in two different schools * the one accommodated to the conceptions of the Jews , the other to tjie situation of the * Heathehs : he regards Peter ia § the head of the less liberal , or of what may be denominated tihe Hebrew Ghrhtian , party , ai * d Paul a * tbe , o » ly apostle who eawuraged a motfe learped and enlightened way of thinking , if , howeyer , we may / foii ^ a ^ liwpment from the respective writkigB biTthese great teachers of C ! i * 5 s « l « 4 iity , tfce ^ e is no ground for-thfe dfetMbtibii : those of Peter contain ntffoiftg which denotes
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Essay on Jewish Phrases and Allusions in the New Testament . 219
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1820, page 219, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2487/page/27/
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